Judge: Sorry For Dashing Dotson's Hopes

April 15, 1985|By United Press International

CHICAGO — The judge who ordered Gary Dotson to finish his prison term for a rape the victim now says never occurred said Sunday he was sorry for Dotson and his family, but their expectations were not real.

Dotson's week of freedom on $100,000 bond ended Friday with his return to prison. Dotson, 28, was freed on bond after Cathleen Crowell Webb, 23, recanted her testimony at an April 4 hearing.

But Cook County Circuit Judge Richard Samuels ruled Thursday he could not believe the woman's recantation and ordered Dotson back to jail to finish his 25- to 50-year sentence.

Dotson has spent six years at the Joliet Correctional Center and was taken to the Dixon Correctional Center to finish his sentence. Officials said he was taken to a different prison for security reasons.

Samuels, who originally sentenced Dotson in 1979, said he went into the case this week with an open mind and dealt with it legally, while Dotson's family viewed it emotionally.

In an interview published Sunday in the Chicago Sun-Times, Samuels said he felt sorry for Dotson when he slammed his hand on a courtroom table and burst into tears along with members of his family upon hearing he had to return to prison.

''I can understand and I can sympathize with them,'' Samuels said.

Samuels said he rejected arguments Thursday that Dotson was wrongly convicted of the 1977 rape at the 1979 trial because he did not believe Webb's recantation. Samuels said he believed the testimony of Webb, then 17, when he presided at Dotson's rape trial, but did not believe her recantation this week.

Samuels said he ruled Webb's recantation was a lie because she exhibited ''that degree of selective recollection.''

Webb, who says her newfound faith in God prompted her to tell the truth, says she fabricated the story because she was afraid she had become pregnant by her boyfriend.